---
title: “What we have to say can be said at any time,” she answered. — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “What we have to say can be said at any time,” she answered. Who acts: mother. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/4/39/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [East of the Sun and West of the Moon](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/4/) / 39

# The Blue Fairy Book, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, sentence 39

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“What we have to say can be said at any time,” she answered.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** mother · **What happens:** say, answer · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, East of the Sun and West of the Moon. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mother), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg503:4:39
# text = “What we have to say can be said at any time,” she answered.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	4	obj	_	_
3	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
8	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
10	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	12	det	_	_
12	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
15	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | can · present · passive |  |  |  |  | time |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: clause=Topic |
| 3 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 38](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/4/38/)
- next →: [sentence 40](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/4/40/)
- ↑ back to [East of the Sun and West of the Moon](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/4/)